The conference participants, who hail from Italy, Canada, England, USA and Israel, share breakfast in the hotel and then go their separate ways. With many of us it’s a poignant farewell since we bonded over the rigorousness of the schedule, our specialized expertise, the excitement of talking about the Bible in the City of Jerusalem, and the enjoyment of our generous welcome.

Jan and I feel fortunate to have another couple of days to explore the City. We walk through the University back to the Israel Museum’s main building and study the displays of artifacts illustrating the history of “The Land” going back to its earliest hunter-gatherer inhabitants of 20 thousand years ago. It’s not surprising here that most of the artifacts seem to have been produced for religious worship.

We’re both intrigued with fertility figures

Thoroughly drained fr0m museum fatigue but cognizant that our time is short, we taxi back to the hotel, rest, and then catch the metro within sight of the “String Bridge,” a brilliant structure by the architect Santiago Calatrava, that seems out of scale and out of place in this location.

We enter the Old City by Jaffa Gate

and then follow some random byways that lead upward to a rooftop passage above the covered market of David Street.

This is the kind of wandering I’d like to do for hours, but we need food and end up at a great restaurant called The Holy Café near the Cordo in the Jewish quarter on the busy thoroughfare leading from the Western Wall to Jaffa Gate.

After late lunch we wander again, now through the modern residential Hush district, where children play in the labyrinthine streets and enclosed playgrounds with little sense of constraint.

The presence of ancient excavated ruin in their midst is no distraction.

Another entryway takes us out of this neighborhood back down to the market, where we do some window shopping for spices and hats

As evening comes on, we pass the citadel of David and ride the packed tram back to the hotel.